Craftsman Thickness Planer Blades

[sam]

You'd think you could get these double-sided blades sharpened. It looks like it would be a pretty straightforward job. Has anyone tried it?

Thanks,

s

[dpb]

...

Of course you can hone them; whether you can sharpen them if have any knick of any size at all is iffy--they are simply too narrow to have much material at all removed.

Nothing lost in trying of course...

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[nailshooter41]

I would look for a local sharpener. We have one or two here, and they will look at your blades and let you know on the spot whether or not they can help you and how much they charge.

Since the local guys here have all the jigs, set ups, and wheels, I think you wind up with a much more satisfactory job (it is much more accurate!) when you put your blades in the hands of a professional.

If it is some of those cheap, thin blades that are considered disposable, grind the blades into marking knives and buy new planer blades.

YMMV.

Robert

[HeyBub]

Best bet is to take them to a blade-sharpening service. These companies sharpen metal shears and blades for giant paper cutters.

[dpb]

That was an editorial "you" :)

Indeed planer and longer jointer knives are fairly difficult to deal with accurately to get a truly straight edge w/o either a lot of hassle in jig-making, etc., or one of the very expensive attachments.

I'm fortunate in that found a sharpener attachment for the old Delta at an auction that nobody apparently recognized what it was for and so was able to snarf it for $5 years ago...

I was assuming OP in all likelihood has one of the current generation lunchbox portables and I think there's very likely not enough excess material for a real sharpening. I can't speak for other than guessing though; I've never had anything smaller than the old Model 13 and currently have it and the (even older) PM 180. All it took was drilling/tapping a set of holes in the outfeed table on the PM and the sharpener works just as well there as it does for the 13 and the jointer. The real cat's meow w/ it is don't ever take the knives out; after a couple times may have to raise them a little but if don't have a sizable knick a fresh edge isn't removing enough material but what it will take quite a number of touch ups before even needing that...

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[Leon]

Gotta agree there, a shaprening service doing both sides of all the blades is likely to cost about as much as buying new.